Discussion Question 10

I really saw truth in all of the three points of Prof. Maniates “trinity of despair.” Some of his points echoed what we had already talked about in class (environmentalist strategy, human nature) but the idea of how we create social change was the most powerful to me. This attitude of having to feel like everyone agrees and being stuck trying to convince or educate people to care about this problem really resonated with me. I feel like that is how a lot of my friends who consider themselves to be environmentalists try to get people on their side. The graph Prof. Maniates really illustrated how there are plenty of people who are concerned about the environment. Yet what I focused on, as well as many people in the class, was the relatively small amount of people who dismiss climate change as a problem. I thought Prof. Maniates point was clear in that if we continue to get bogged down with trying to convince and educate, we are never going to incur the social change that we strive for. Our efforts and energy have a far greater impact if we direct them at structural changes to the mechanisms and institutions of society.
The examples that Prof. Maniates gave like the Civil Rights movement were very illustrative of the kind of social movements that worked without convincing everyone of their validity and worth. This is also true for the Feminist movement and we are seeing it now as well with the Gay Rights movement. Not everyone is convinced and agrees on what should be done, but the agents of the Gay Rights movement are not wasting their time and efforts trying to educate people and get them on their side. They are going right to the system and changing laws and the structure of society without diluting their efforts by trying to convince everyone.